Defining the Soul in Walt Whitman's Song of Myself

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Every sentence in Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" tends to either repeat or contradict. He even says of himself, "I contradict myself" (Lauter, p. 2793). This can make Whitman's poetry a little confusing to some. In his many stanzas, definition of the soul is ambiguous and somewhat contradictory.

Whitman says, "Clear and sweet is my soul....and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul" (Lauter, p. 2745). What I believe Whitman is saying here is that his soul and everything else that is not his soul, including the souls of others, is clear and sweet. He goes on to say in the lines following, "Lacks one lacks both..." (Lauter, p. 2745). In other words, a soul cannot be clear if it is not sweet and a soul cannot be sweet if it is not clear. If it does not have one of the qualities, then it cannot have the other. By his words, a soul is not a soul unless it has both qualities: clear and sweet.

He says many lines down, "I believe in you my soul....the other I must not abase itself to you, And you must not be abased to the other" (Latuer, p. 2746). Whitman ...

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